


Twin Skeletons

by LuthienLuinwe, thrakaboom



Category: DCU, Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Addiction, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Chronic Illness, Developmental Disabilities, Drug Use, F/M, Gen, Roy Harper Needs a Hug, clone, parenting
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-22
Updated: 2018-11-03
Packaged: 2019-06-14 18:12:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15394518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LuthienLuinwe/pseuds/LuthienLuinwe, https://archiveofourown.org/users/thrakaboom/pseuds/thrakaboom
Summary: When Roy Harper was taken by the Light, he never expected to be left with a clone, let alone a helpless infant clone. Recently escaped, baby in hand, he struggles to adjust to life as normal and life as a new father.





	1. Twin Skeletons

**Author's Note:**

> Luthien: Thank you so much to Tashi_Lupin for writing this fic with me! Their ideas are absolutely amazing, and it has been absolutely wonderful working with them!

**“A birth and a death on the same day, and honey I only appear so I can fade away. I wanna throw my hands in the air and scream. And I could just die laughing on your spiral of shame.”**

He stared and glanced around. God, why was everything so bright? And so hot? He should have been dead. At least that’s what the twisting feeling in the pit of his stomach told him. He should have been dead so the boy could keep going and replace him. Their perfect little weapon trained to do everything they wanted him to.

How long had he been missing?

God, it had to have been a year.

He looked down at the sleeping  _ thing  _ in his arm. God, it was so small, fragile. It would break if he held it wrong… Little tuft of red hair on his little head. Smattering of freckles across his nose. Deathly pale skin and a wheezing sound when he breathed that couldn’t have meant anything good.

Hospital.

Needed to find a hospital.

Hospital for both of them because he could barely stand and everything hurt and he felt like he was going to be sick at the drop of the hat.

Phone. Needed to find a phone. Needed to find a phone and call someone and hope to God that whoever he called answered. Ollie? Probably thought he was dead. Dick? Definitely still beating himself up.

His vision was blurry and it was hard to move, and the thing in his arm started screaming, and God, he needed it to just shut up so they could get further away. Needed to find a hospital. Needed to find a phone. Needed to get the fuck out.

He’d killed a guy. He was pretty sure he’d killed a guy. He didn’t care. Not right then. Needed to get away. Needed to get out. Needed to figure out what happens next now that he had this stupid  _ thing  _ to look after.

The baby (did it count as a baby?) was screaming and he couldn’t get it to stop, and  _ God,  _ he just wanted it to be quiet so he could think. “Cute kid,” a random woman with dark hair and bright eyes pushing a stroller had said. “Looks just like you.” He muttered out a thanks and bounced his clone on his hip.  _ Please just shut up.  _ Don’t draw attention. Stay calm.

He started walking just to give his body something to do other than hold that  _ thing  _ in his hands. God, what had they done to him? He should have left it to die. Maybe that would have been all the better in the end.

Hospital. Then phone. God, he was starving. And his throat felt like sandpaper. And for  _ fuck’s sake  _ could that  _ thing  _ just shut up so he could think for a damned minute?! He couldn't think. He couldn't focus. What the hell was the point? The thing probably wouldn't make it past the night. What chance did he have without the Light's equipment? Roy didn't like the odds.

Maybe that was for the best.

A bright blue sign with a bright white H flashed, and he could have screamed, cried, or both. He circled around, holding the brat closer. He didn't want it to die... Did he? It would be easier if it died, so much easier...

"Can I help you?" the lady behind the desk asked. God, those fluorescent lights were blinding the hell out of him. If he didn't know better, he would have said the lights were making his headache hundreds of thousands of times worse.

God, couldn’t she see what was wrong? Stupid thing was obvious.  Roy held the baby up as best as he could.  It was still wheezing and crying and Roy could barely think.  “He’s sick. Needs a doctor or something, I don’t know…” Fuck. Could he have been any more stupid? They were going to want documentation, records, insurance. Babies didn’t just pop up out of nowhere.  _ Unless they’re your fucking clone that you never asked for.  _

“I’m going to need you to fill out some paperwork,” the woman started to hand him a clipboard, and Roy watched her face turn bright red when her eyes glanced over to where his arm had once been.  And he had been ignoring the pain there so well, too.  “Maybe we can have someone help you fill it out?”

He shook his head. He didn’t need any damned help filling out some stupid forms, not when he had to make everything up on the spot. “I just need to set him down or something.”

“I’ll see what we can do,” the woman said, and Roy watched her leave. 

Maybe he could just leave it here, make it someone else’s problem.People did that, left babies they didn’t want at hospitals. It wouldn’t die at least, this way. No one had to know he even had it, that it ever existed. No, he couldn’t do that. This was his responsibility; no one else’s. Why did everything have to be so fucking complicated?

He sat down, the  _ thing  _ on his lap and glanced at the clipboard full of papers wanting information he didn’t have.  He didn’t have any answers, didn’t want anyone to know who he was  or where he came from. Parents / Guardian… Shit. Shit. He needed to make a decision and make one fast. But he didn’t have a damned birth certificate. Why would he have one for a clone?  _ Roy Harper,  _ he wrote down, followed by his date of birth.

Fuck, Ollie was going to kill him.

Ollie.

Shit.

He was underage. They were going to call Ollie. Ollie was going to think he ran off because he knocked some stranger up, and not because he’d been kidnapped and tortured for a year, and God, could the damned thing just stop screaming?!

The nurse called them back before he could finish the paperwork and she was reaching for the  _ thing,  _ but Roy didn’t want anyone else to touch it because he’d worked so hard to get it here, and dammit it would just scream more if someone else grabbed it, but he couldn’t fight her off, even though every nerve in his body was telling him to.

How many had he fought through to get out?

He didn’t want to think about it.

The man was dead…

No. Not the time to think about that.

But when would be the time to think about it?

Hopefully never again.

He followed the woman back,  holding the thing tightly to his chest. It screamed less when he did that, when he made sure it was safe against him, even if it was just by a little bit. When it wasn’t screaming, it was easier to hear how irregular it’s breathing was. His breathing?  “When did the symptoms start?” When did they fucking start? As soon as the damned thing had been created, from what Roy had heard.

They’d taken five samples of his DNA, trying to create a clone his same age and height. And all they had managed was that stupid thing-baby he was stuck staring at and stuck caring for.

He never asked for any of that shit.

He never asked for his arm to be taken from him. And  _ fuck  _ did it hurt. And he’d been so good about ignoring it because that stupid  _ thing  _ needed more attention than he did, and he barely registered the, “Sir, are you okay?” before everything faded to black.   
  



	2. Restless Heart Syndrome

**“I’m a victim of the system. I am my own worst enemy.”**

Everything was fuzzy and he couldn’t see straight. His mouth felt like he’d swallowed a handful of cotton balls and his head was swimming. Everything was too bright when he opened his eyes, and God, he just wanted to fall back to sleep for the rest of the week if he could. “Hey kid,” a voice that was too loud practically screamed into his ear. Roy groaned and forced his eyes back open, frowning when he saw Ollie and Dinah at his bedside.

What had happened?

Escape.

Hospital.

Clone baby….

Fuck.

“So who’s Reed?” the voice Roy could now see belonged to Ollie asked, and Roy just blinked and stared at him. Reed? Who the hell was Reed? It sounded familiar, but only vaguely. He frowned when he saw a needle sticking out of his arm and leads connected to his chest. He could feel his left hand, throbbing and in shooting pain even though he could see the stump. God, it was almost just like being back with the Light.

At least this place was cleaner.

But he still wanted to throw up.

He groaned when he remembered where he knew the name from.  _ Name of Dependent Child: Reed Harper.  _ It’d been the first name he had thought of, one of the few things he managed to fill out before fainting. “Good to see you too,” he muttered, more hostility in his voice than he had anticipated. But why shouldn’t he be hostile? He’d been gone a fucking year. He’d lost his fucking arm. And the first question Ollie had was about the stupid clone? “I’m fine, by the way.”

“Ollie, maybe we should…” Dinah started to say, but Ollie held a hand up to stop her. Maybe they should what? Was there more they were keeping him in the dark  that he didn’t know about? God knew Dinah would have a word or two with Ollie about his tone once Roy was out of earshot.

“Don’t be like that, Roy,” Ollie sighed and glanced at Dinah, who paused before nodding and left the room. Fucking great. No witnesses. A silent moment passed between them, full of things neither of them were brave enough to say. It was Ollie who broke it, clearing his throat before he spoke. “They called CPS.”

“They what?” Roy demanded and felt his heart sink. Ollie and Dinah hadn’t done anything wrong. Ollie had been looking for him… right? He didn’t want to entertain the other option. Or… had he meant so little to him that Ollie hadn’t looked at all?

"Don’t panic yet,” Ollie squeezed his shoulder. “They’re just opening a Child In Need of Services case on you… and on your son.”

“He’s not my kid,” Roy spat. 

“Well It’s sure as hell what it looks like,” Ollie sighed and ran a hand through his hair, looking so much older than he was as he did. Like he really could be Roy’s father.

Roy swallowed, lips dry and chapped, not ready for Ollie’s questioning, for his assumptions. He glared and wished for the energy to spit fire and rage, but all he was was tired and the room was still swimming in his eyesight. Ollie thought that damn clone was his kid, Ollie might not have been looking for him. Other people were going to be poking and prodding into his life because he’d been stupid and gotten caught and taken and Ollie didn’t save him. 

Ollie didn’t save him.

He’d been so sure, at first, after he realized there was no way in hell he could escape with how drugged the Light kept him, that Ollie would come, that Ollie would save him.

He had a thousand accusations he wanted to make but instead he asked “Where is it? The baby?”

“They have him monitored in the NICU. He’s alive, they weren’t sure he would be for a while.”   
  
Roy felt numb, can’t bring a reaction out of himself. It was good the clone didn’t die, he had risked so much to have it not die, to get them here but part of him couldn’t help but think that it would have all been easier if maybe he had.

Because really, what the hell was he supposed to do with a baby? He was barely fif… sixteen he had to remind himself. Ra’s had been sure to rub it in his face that he was another year older and still no closer to escaping. 

He didn't want the additional reminder of his torture and imprisonment to be… to be dependant on him, like the Light was laughing in his face for the rest of time. He didn’t even want kids, even if they weren’t clones meant to grow up and replace him. He still was a kid. With CPS around the corner (Roy could imagine them, outside the door, hungry vultures ready to take him away) it was impossible to forget that. 

“Roy?” Ollie tried, but Roy didn’t want to hear anything the man had to say.

“Just shut up, Ollie, okay?” Roy snapped. He’d been gone a year. He’d been gone a year and was tortured and fucking  _ cloned  _ and Ollie hadn’t done a damned thing to stop it. He’d promised to protect him back when he was younger. Where the hell had he been, then? 

“Roy...” he tried again, voice more resigned this time, maybe even a little hurt if Roy didn’t know a little better.

“No. Fuck you, Ollie. Fuck you.” His pulse was pounding in his ear, and he could see his heart-rate and blood pressure skyrocketing from the monitors he was attached to. What the hell did Ollie know? Nothing. Not a God-damned thing. No. This time, Roy was going to speak, and Ollie was going to listen whether he wanted to or not.

“You need to calm down…”

“No, I need my fucking arm back, and I need this stupid kid to just go away!” He needed to wake up and still be fifteen and have this all have never happened.

“So what do you want to do then?” Ollie asked and crossed his arms, and Roy glared daggers at him. He wanted to go find a time machine and go back and stop any of this from ever happening. He should have been more vigilant. He should have seen them coming…

“I just want to go home.” But where was home anymore? It certainly had never been with Ollie. He’d had a home once, but he couldn’t go back there. They’d shun him. They may not even let him back in at all.

He wanted Brave Bow back, wanted to curl up beside him and have him say that everything was going to be okay even though nothing was going to be okay ever again. Wanted to feel his arms around him and tuck his head under Brave Bow’s chin like he was still a kid and unable to sleep because of a stupid thunderstorm. 

He took in a sharp breath when he felt pain where his arm should have been. “What’s wrong?” Ollie asked, more as an instinct than anything else if his tone was anything to go by. 

“Leave me alone, Ollie. Just go.”

And for once, Ollie listened and left.

Sitting all alone in the hospital room that was blindingly white and uncomfortably stable, he almost wished Ollie would have stayed just so he didn’t have to be alone, left with thoughts that wouldn’t go away no matter how hard he tried to push them away and pain he didn’t want to feel and thoughts of the stupid  _ thing  _ he was stuck with.

He shouldn’t have named it.


	3. Hearbeat Slowing Down

**“All we had written, well it’s been erased. It’s something that I had to do. I cut you deep, you’re bleeding through. You’re every single shade of blue. I’m staring right in front of you. I can hear your heartbeat slowing down.”**

There was nothing happier than the natal unit of a hospital. Little miracles of life that would go home with the happy new parents in a matter of days, ready for whatever the hell it was life would throw at them. They lay in their little cribs with their tiny pink and blue hats, swaddled in God-awful blankets that were so thin they couldn’t really be doing anything to keep the newborns warm. Roy almost wanted to go in there and wrap them up in something thicker himself. They looked so cold. Reed looked so cold.

There was nothing more depressing than the natal intensive care unit. All of the other babies were happy, healthy. Not Reed, who lay attached to too many leads and monitors for Roy to count, IV lines running through his stomach, his feet, even one in his skull… Just the sight of it alone made Roy sick to his stomach. It wasn’t fair. The kid didn’t ask for any of this. He didn’t ask for any of this.

Maybe it would’ve been better if Roy had just left him behind.

No. He couldn’t think like that. The Light would’ve destroyed him. At least this way he had a chance… Didn’t he?

Roy didn’t know how long he had been standing at the window, watching. He thought the baby (it was a baby, not a weapon, not an it Roy had to remind himself) was supposed to get better at a real hospital, away from the Light. He thought they’d help him, fix him. No, it was just gonna die here anyways, despite all Roy did to get it out. Just to die in his little glass crib with all the tubes and wires. Maybe… maybe it was for the best.

He thought he was supposed to get better too. But he was still down one arm and up one kid he didn’t even want. But where else would it go? It was a clone, his clone, the Light might kidnap it and kill it if it went to civilian parents. He had to take it, it was his responsibility. It was on him.

_ “It’s okay if you don’t want to keep him,”  _ the CPS lady had said, looking at Roy with fake sympathetic eyes and using a syrupy-sweet voice Roy was sure she used with any kid in his situation (was he even still a kid anymore?).  _ “But you need to make that decision.”  _ No. No one could have possibly been that nice. And a bitter taste had formed in the back of his throat and he could feel his pulse beating in his neck because she wanted something. God, she must have wanted something, and oh God what if she worked for  _ them?  _ Because surely she must have worked for them and that was why she was being so nice because she wanted him to trust them and go with them and he couldn’t go back there, not again, never again. They’d kill him that time. He didn’t doubt that at all. And they would have killed Reed too, and he had to keep Reed safe from them. Was that why she suggested giving Reed up? So she could take him back to them, so they could clean up their mess?

He didn’t wanna keep him, but what choice did he have?

He hadn’t wanted to talk to the social worker, not now, not so soon after everything that had happened. He just wanted to… he didn’t even know what he wanted. To bask in being away from the Light. To never have to talk about it, but even more to never have to lie about it.

He knew he’d have to. They wanted details, they had to.

He kept wondering, the entire time he pretended to listen to the woman, had Ollie looked for him, or just put on a show of it? Ollie had actually wanted him and let him get taken and experimented on. He didn’t even like Reed and he wouldn’t let that happen to him.

“Hey kid,” Roy jumped when he heard a voice and felt a hand on his shoulder. How long had he been standing there? He turned his head to look at Ollie, and for a moment he wondered if those lines had always been on his forehead. “They’re ready for you.”

“Great,” he muttered and glanced back at the  _ thing  _ connected to all the monitors.  _ Now or never.  _ The lies had to come some time. How the hell was he even supposed to explain any of it? He was gone a year. They’d want answers. Names. And he couldn’t give that to them. “Tell them they can talk to me here. I don’t…” He didn’t want to talk to them. He didn’t trust the doctors and nurses alone with Reed. He didn’t have any idea what he was going to say to them. What could he say? He didn’t want to have to face them alone.

“They won’t let you do that, Roy,” Ollie squeezed his shoulder. When had he ever heard him sound so tired before?

“I’m not leaving him,” Roy shook his head and tried to ignore his heart pounding in his chest and his stomach twisting into knots. Who knew what the nurses and doctors would do if Roy wasn’t keeping an eye on them? What if one of them was working for the Light and would take him away? What if they made things worse? What if they missed something going wrong?   What if Reed died and it was all his… No. He couldn’t let himself care about the kid. Getting attached would just make it worse when the inevitable finally happened.

“I’ll stay right here,” Ollie promised, and Roy shook his head because what good could Ollie do? Oliver Queen was a billionaire playboy with a good heart but who couldn’t hold his own in a fight if he tried. Maybe he’d at least do something to keep Reed safe if something happened, though… But then again, Ollie had let him get kidnapped. Who was to say the same wouldn’t happen to Reed? 

He really shouldn’t have named him. Maybe he would worry less if he hadn’t named him. Care less what happened to him.

“They can come to me. I’m not leaving him.” If he left, he’d be as bad as Ollie, letting him out of his sight. Two seconds with his back turned was all it would take for something to go wrong. Ollie might have been able to live with that kind of guilt, but Roy sure as hell couldn’t. 

He already felt so guilty for letting him be created in the first place. It was all he could do to protect him. God, Roy was just a kid. He didn’t want this, he didn’t want any of this. And really, what the hell was he supposed to do with a kid? He was just a kid himself. And God, everyone was going to think Reed was his, and what would the others say? They’d never look at him the same way again. Just because he was his responsibility didn’t mean he was his kid. Could Roy even be Speedy anymore, with this thing around. After letting himself get caught, would Ollie even let him? He wasn’t anything without Speedy, not really, not anymore. God. Everything was so messed up. He didn’t want Reed to be messed up like him. He’d do better with someone else. Anyone else.

But anyone else meant bigger chances for the Light to get their hands on him.

“I’ll tell them then,” Ollie sighed and ran a hand through his hair, and Roy let himself breathe again. Ollie wrapped his arms around Roy in a quick hug. “Don’t worry Roy, Dinah and I won’t let anything happen to you or Reed.”

Liar. The worst had already happened. 

Hadn’t it? 


	4. Waking the Lions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Roy talks to the CPS caseworker.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the delay in updates! With me going back to school, we had a harder time making scheduling so we could both have the time to work on this. Enjoy! -TL

**“I’m not gonna hide from the vultures above, serpents below. They wanna lay me to rest, but I won’t go.”**

He heard the caseworker’s heels before he saw her. She had been so nice, so worried. The caretakers the Light hired had been so kind too, so sympathetic. They had said things like “he’s such a wonderful baby” and “I’m so sorry this is happening to you.” They never meant it. No one meant it.  He almost went to reach for an arrow but he didn’t have his quiver, of course he didn’t have it.

It took him a second more to remember he didn’t have that arm either. (What good was an archer without an arm?)

“I’m ready for you, Roy,” the woman said in that syrupy sweet voice one might have used on a scared child. He wasn’t a child anymore. Why couldn’t anyone understand that? He glanced at Ollie who gave him a reassuring nod before walking off on his own.

“All right, Roy,” she said and took a seat in one of the chairs facing the NICU. “I just have a few questions for you.”

Roy Harper was intimately familiar with silences. But nothing could have prepared him for the sharp, tense silence happening in that moment as he sat across from the CPS lady. What was there to say to someone who was hellbent on tearing the family apart? And so he sat in silence, staring at her as she tapped her stupid number two pencil against her stupid legal pad.

He didn’t look at her. She had agreed to see him where he could still see Reed, so he watched the baby instead. The IVs going into his body, the tubes, he wanted to rip them out of him, because he had the sinking fear they were pumping him full of something, something bad. That fear gas Gotham has or some sort of slow moving poison, gas, or, or whatever gave Ra’s al Ghul the glow in his eyes. He could still see that evil glow when he shut his eyes. Sometimes he wondered if he’d ever forget it. (What if the glow of Ra’s’ eyes were Reed’s first memory?) He tried to tell himself that the Light wouldn’t be here, in this hospital. They would have taken him by now, or taken Reed, or killed them both. It had been days. The Light wasn’t here.

He caught himself rubbing at the stump of his arm.

“Roy?” the CPS lady asked, and Roy blinked over at her. She was looking at him expectantly, and he wondered how long he’d been zoned out, lost in his thoughts. “I asked if you remembered what happened the day you disappeared?”

He shook his head. Of course he remembered. He’d been minding his own damn business on patrol, a normal patrol, when someone had sneaked up behind him. But she didn’t need to know that. _Keep it cool, Harper,_ he told himself, even though he could feel his heart rate speeding up and his stomach twisting into knots. It wasn’t like he was really lying, fully. After that, things became fuzzy from pain and the faces of the Light all blurred together into a monster with scars, and horns, and glowing green eyes.

“Roy,” she continued, and God, Roy wished she would stop saying his name like he was some wounded animal. “I need to be frank here. Did Mr. Queen or Ms. Lance ever hurt you?”

“Don’t you ever ask me that again,” he spat, anger rising in his chest, drowning fear in fire. He shot up from his chair. How could anyone, _anyone,_ ever think Ollie or Dinah would hurt him?  Who couldn’t see how much they loved him- they did, they had to. Or, they had before… If Roy couldn’t be Speedy, if he had gotten caught, what claim did he have to their affection?

“Roy, I understand this can be difficult-”

“Just shut up!” he snapped at her, not caring when she flinched away. She didn’t know what she was talking about. And yeah, maybe Ollie had let him down and not found him (he _was_ looking, right?) but he never, _never_ would have hurt him. “You don’t know what you’re talking about, okay?”   
  
“Then can you please tell me so I do know what I’m talking about?” she asked in a level voice that made his skin crawl. Too much like another woman, too much like another place.

He went back to watching Reed. The baby was still. Too still. Shouldn’t he have been squirming around like the others? Why couldn’t he just be like the other, healthy babies? The ones that would get to go home in a matter of days? What did he do to deserve a baby like that, who he had to worry it didn’t even know how to breathe? If he had had to have a clone baby, why couldn’t it just be normal? It’d be easier to protect a kid who was normal.

“And then there’s the matter of your son…” the woman trailed off, and Roy wanted to snap at her because that _thing_ wasn’t his son. It was a stupid clone that he never asked for. That he never wanted. “Have you made a decision?”

Roy shut his eyes and took a deep, shaky breath. He couldn’t let the kid go into the system. The Light would be able to track him down too easily. He couldn’t have that. The Light had already done enough damage to both of them (the thing _did_ count as a ‘someone’ right?). He took another deep, even breath before looking her dead in the eye.

“You can’t take him from me.”

The woman seemed shocked about his reluctant certainty. He had heard the weight in his words, the gravity. The duty. He didn’t sound like a new father. Spending so much time in the NICU, he’d heard many new fathers talking about their little bundles of joy. It was all excitement and love, and manic, happy nervousness. And Roy? All he felt was a strong sense of duty and dread. The kid needed protection, and he was the only one who could provide that. There wasn’t any attachment, any joy. Roy was almost jealous of them. The other fathers, the real fathers? Their children wouldn’t die tomorrow. They didn’t have that chance. Would Roy be sad if the baby died? He’d done so much to get it here. He’d risked so much. He had named it.

So why did the baby still feel like an ‘it’?

“Are you sure?” The caseworker asked. Bells went off in Roy’s head. She was trying to separate them, she wanted to take the baby away. Return it to the Light or kill it. He forced his heart rate down, not wanting to give away any weakness. Tried to tell himself that she wasn’t the Light.

“I’m sure,” Roy nodded, feeling a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach, feeling like he’d just damned himself to a life he wanted no part of.

But what other choice did he have?

He couldn’t let Reed die. Not like that.

He was the only person the kid had.

To let anyone else take the burden was to damn himself and Reed.

The woman started speaking in an even softer, more level voice, and Roy couldn’t look at her. “Roy,” she sounded like she was talking to a frightened rabbit or a spooked foal. “Can you tell me about how you lost your arm?”  
  
“No,” he said mostly honestly. He separated himself from the memory, the same way Ollie had taught him to separate himself from the most horrific crimes he had seen. _We can be angry later,_ Ollie had said. _Now we have to focus, do the best thing in the situation._

Neither of them had ever been any good at that.

“One day, I woke up and it wasn’t there.”  
  
“It was when I was gone,” he added belatedly, just so she didn’t get any ideas that it was somehow Ollie or Dinah’s fault.

“All right, Roy,” she said, that stupid, fake smile never leaving her face. “I think that’s enough for today.” He knew she was only saying that because she didn’t want to push him. To _scare_ him. Or have him catch onto her- no. She wasn’t with the Light.

Roy watched as she stood, grabbed her bag, and left.

He never wanted to see her again.


	5. Golden

**“Tongues on the sockets of electric dreams where the sewage of youth drowned the spark of my teens.”**

Reed was released with strict instructions about his care on a snowy morning in February. Dinah had been the one to accompany Roy to the hospital. He’d already taken two of the Vicodin tablets his doctor had prescribed to him for the pain by the time Reed was in his arms. They made his head fuzzy and his stomach hurt, but they made the pain from his arm, or well, what was left of it, stop, at least temporarily. 

Reed was crying when the nurse handed him to him, helping Roy settle Reed in his arm. There was probably medication it would have to take; Roy hadn’t thought of that.What kind of medication did you give a clone baby anyway?   It had been jarring enough to see the baby without an IV hooked up to it. 

He wasn’t listening to whatever Reed’s doctors were telling Dinah, just bouncing the clone in his arms because it wouldn’t stop crying, it wouldn’t stop and Roy just knew that it needed to stop, and that if it didn’t stop sometime  _ soon,  _ Roy was going to lose his mind. And the stupid thing could barely breathe right, why was it wasting so much effort to scream and cry, and it wasn’t hungry, because the nurse said he’d fed it before giving it to Roy and it didn’t need a change and it just hated Roy.

Well, Roy wasn’t the biggest fan of it either. It was different, holding it than looking at it from behind glass. Holding it, he could notice how much it looked like him. Remember how it was him, grown from the cells of his missing arm, stolen from him while he lay scared and confused in the Light’s cells.

“It won’t stop,” Roy said and handed the baby off to Dinah, who stared at him with a confused expression. “Here. Babies like you.” He just needed a minute away from everything, away from the hospital sounds and monitors and the smell of cavi-wipes and antiseptic. Was a minute alone too much to ask for?

He headed out to the curb and watched the various people entering and exiting the wing of the hospital. He shook another pain pill into his hand and swallowed it dry, telling himself he was stopping the phantom pain in its tracks. Where was the harm in it? He had three refills. The doctors kept telling him to take them before he needed them. So he might as well get Ollie’s money worth out of the damned things.

He couldn’t be expected to focus on the baby when he was in pain, right? And they had a long drive home, and Roy was just dreading putting it in the little car seat Dinah had brought home yesterday.He hated all the baby things that Oliver and Dinah kept bringing him. He didn’t want the damn thing, let alone all of the… accessories that went with it.

But he didn’t want anyone else to have it either. He needed to protect it, keep it safe. He was the only one who could do it, the only one he trusted for the long term. Even Ollie and Dinah… well, they hadn’t found him when he was kidnapped had they? How the hell were they supposed to keep him  _ and  _ a baby safe? They’d done a fucking great job of it before. Roy, at least, knew the Light. He wouldn’t let them take Reed, take their weapon back. Would they even use him as a weapon still? Roy doubted it. The kid could barely live on its own without the medication and machines the hospital was sending them home with. Maybe they would just kill him, but then again, they hadn’t killed Roy once they were done with it’s creation. Maybe they would create better, stronger clones from Reed’s parts? He didn’t know, he didn’t want to know, didn’t want the Light to get their hands on either of them, ever again.  

He jumped when someone put a hand on his shoulder and turned around to see who it was, prepared to throw a punch with his good arm. He wouldn’t let anyone hurt him ever again.

“Woah there, it’s just me, it’s Dinah.” She had the baby in her arms. It wasn’t crying anymore. See? It hated him, it must hate him. It always cried when he held it, little face screwed up. It looked like his, too much like his, minus some fifteen years.

It took several moments to calm down, to get his heart rate back down to normal, or at least as normal as he was able to get it. 

“Are you ready to go?” She asked. 

“I guess,” Roy answered. Did it really matter if he was ready to go or not? Either way they’d have to leave. He was beginning to think he should never had agreed to take care of the kid, let the CPS woman take him like she had wanted to. Why should he care if the Light took the clone baby away. Or maybe he should just leave it with Ollie and Dinah and get the hell out of Star City.

They’d found him once. They could find him all over again and ruin his life again. Only this time he doubted he’d be able to make it out alive. He was down an arm and a year of practice. And what the hell was Ollie going to think of him then? He couldn’t fight crime in the state he was in. He wondered if he’d ever be able to fight crime again at all.

Did he even want to?

Would Ollie and Dinah want him if he didn’t?

Dinah handled buckling Reed into the little backward facing seat, like a basket for babies. He’d seen parents carry their own babies in them. But they were all older than Reed, and definitely healthier. What the hell was he supposed to do with a baby? 

Besides, the baskets just made him think of Red Riding Hood with her goodies for Grandma, about to be devoured by the big bad wolf.

Reed was screaming again, before he shifted into little hiccuping cries, struggling weekly against the car seat restraints. Roy just sat beside him while Dinah got in the front seat.

Why couldn’t it just be quiet?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for delays! We'll try not to take over a month next time, especially for so short a chapter. We have some things in mind though, don't you worry... -TL


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